God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Walking deeper into the cave felt like stepping into another dimension entirely.

The front of the cave had been eerie, but ever step Cain took forward made his skin crawl.

The walls were littered with crimson veins that didn't seem to radiate light. Instead, they made the darkness even more pronounced.

The air was stuffy, but still freezing cold.

And to make matters worse, with his eyes, Cain could clearly see dozens of blood pools scattered everywhere, their origins being the shimmering red crystal pillars hanging from the roof of the cave overhead.

Cain could tell that these were the {Blood Crystals} Steve had mentioned earlier.

From the look of things, it seemed to be rather abundant in these caves.

'Perhaps due to the Divine influence of Bellius.' He thought to himself.

As they went in further, he noticed that some of the blood pools were rather unstable, restless bubbles rising to the surface.

He was a bit curious.

He turned to Shadow who was walking in front of them.

The large winged creature had fallen silent ever since their last conversation.

Cain cleared his throat,

"What are those things?" He asked, pointing at the bubbling blood pools.

The {Blood-Curse Bat} flexed his wings and answered calmly,

"Those are blood pools created from blood essence drops. We use them to breed our young."

Cain was still a bit curious,

"Blood Essence? What is that? What does that do?"

Shadow's brows creased upward into a frown,

"We {Blood-Curse Bats} are born with frail, weak bodies. The Blood Essence does a good job in strengthening it to a large degree. The {Blood Crystals} themselves are crystalized drops of the Bloodthirsty Night God's blood."

Cain hummed, "I see."

If that was the case, then it meant that the blood crystals were simply concentrated forms of the Blood Essence.

'Isn't that too insane?'

Piecing such information together, he quickly deduced that the reason th {Blood-Curse Bats} were able to not only become local hegemons, but also possess the ability to survive these treacherous lands, was solely due to the existence of these blood crystals.

They continued walking deeper into the cave until they reached a large opening.

The moment they did, Cain heard an audible gasp come from behind him.

"Good heavens." Steve muttered as he took a shocked step forward.

Cain couldn't even blame him for being surprised. Even he was quite shocked.

Never had he expected for such scenery to be below ground. Granted, he has seen the Redscale Colony. Even though this was impressive, it still couldn't hold a candle to that.

From here, he could see clearly that all the caves, perhaps numbering in the hundreds, perhaps even a thousand of them, were connected together by corridors, much like an subterranean hive, to form an underground cavernous system.

It was truly something extraordinary to see. From where they were, which was just a since entrance leading to the main lair, the entire thing was laid bare. Cain realized he could see everything. And what he saw made the awe go away and a shiver run down his spine.

The entire roof of the enormous cave was filled with slumbering bats.

Large bats.

Most of them even larger than Shadow was.

Suddenly, Shadow spread his wings and lunged down.

Blaze frowned,

"It's all the way down there."

Steve shrugged and took a step forward before leaping down,

"Try to keep up."

A flourish of magic enveloped him, slowing down the speed of his fall greatly.

Cain chuckled then turned to Blaze,

"You want me to carry you down?"

Blaze grimaced and placed a hand up,

"That won't be necessary. You go first. I'll be right behind you."

Cain shrugged,

"If you say so."

His back curved out as two enormous leathery wings shot out from both sides of his back.

Blaze's expression fell. Such a sight was rather grotesque and strange.

With a flap of his wings, Cain shot down as well.

Left alone, Blaze let out a sigh and glanced down.

The distance to the ground was a lot. Of course, he could jump down, but doing so without sustaining injury would be rather difficult.

"To hell with it!"

Taking in a deep breath, Blaze drew his spear form its holster. Taking a few steps back, he paused for good measure and exhale ld sharply.

Then like a javelin shot into the clouds, he shot down.

A subtle covering of flames wrapped around his body, burning the air with a righteous flare.

Somehow, the flames wrapped around him coiled and moved like they were living, slowing his descent greatly.

Until finally, he landed on the ground right behind Cain and Steve.

Steve had a rather curious look in his eyes,

"Impeccable mana control, I would say."

Blaze ckicked his tongue,

"Don't go getting any funny ideas now."

Steve rubbed his nose,

"Do you really think that low of me?"

Blaze turned to Cain, a question in his eyes.

Cain hummed and turned to face Shadow.

The {Blood-Curse Bat} huffed the turned around,

"Follow me."

Since the bats were nocturnal creatures, they were all asleep on the roof of the cave.

However, itw as steange that this Shadow was not asleep.

It was even stranger that it was able to follow them when it was still daytime.

The cave was very silent. Besides the sound of the blood pools bubbling, there was nothing but the sound of their footsteps.

They passed between two large blood pools.

Coincidentally, Cain glanced to the side.

With the {Beholder's Eye} still active, he could see all the way to the bottom of the pool.

His expression suddenly changed.

However, it quickly reverted to normal.

Sensing something, Shadow turned back.

His eyes narrowed when he saw that the three were still following behind him.

A strange look appeared in his eyes as he quietly sighed then turned his head back.

Once the man-sized bat was no longer looking their way, Cain's expression fell once again.

What he had seen at the bottom of that pool...

The pools were rather deep, much deeper than he had originally thought, and like Shadow had said, there were hundreds of young bats slumbering on the walls within the pool.

However, besides that, there were also thousands upon thousands of skeletal remains laying right there at the very bottom of the blood pool.

Cain grimaced.

A bad feeling washed through his chest as he took another step forward.